Nick of Time
by stress
Summary: Now that she looked at the doll, she could not help but think that each imperfection was a nick of time. [one shot entry for Stretch’s contest]


Author's Note: _This is my entry for Stretch's awesome contest. I could not help but enter it – the idea of getting inspiration from historical pictures was fascinating. I think I may have taken the challenge a bit too literally but, hey, I had fun. And, though there are no familiar faces in this, I hope you do too. If not, don't worry about it. I just wanted to archive this with my other stuff :)_

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Nick of Time

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The newborn baby gurgled peacefully as Melisa Baker set her down on her stomach. It was only Baby Kiera's third night out of the hospital but, as long as her mother was up to feed her three times throughout the night, she slept peacefully. But not her mother.

If anything it was Lisa who was having a hard time falling asleep. It had been a difficult pregnancy and, now that Kiera had been born, she felt that it just was not possible to leave the cradle's side.

She yawned and took her seat in the rocking chair that her husband had bought her upon finding out that she had successfully entered her third trimester. It was a comfortable chair, padded especially so that she could sit there during feedings.

As comfortable as the chair was, Lisa's back was still sore. Grunting slightly under her breath, she stood back up and paced back and forth across the room, trying to dull the aches.

It was quite difficult, walking across the room, with the lights out – while, at the same time, she was trying to keep her gaze on the cradle. In fact, she was so preoccupied that she found herself tripping over a box that was set on the opposite side of the rocking chair.

She did not walk into the wooden box hard enough to hurt her slippered feet but it was enough to cause her to stumble; she all but fell into the lap of the rocking chair. It caused her a sharp bit of pain but Lisa made sure to swallow it, so as not to wake up the baby. She winced and turned over slowly so that she was, once again, sitting in the rocking chair.

There was a small lamp on a dresser next to the rocking chair. Reaching over, she turned it on, shedding a bit of light over the small nursery room. Scowling, she looked down at the wooden box accusingly. It was a gift from her mother; Lilly Morgan had brought it over for the baby the day that Lisa brought her home from the hospital.

Slowly leaning over, taking care not to cause any unnecessary pain, Lisa picked up the box. In the midst of bringing the baby home, visiting with relatives and setting up the nursery, she had not had the chance to look at the gift yet.

_Well, _she thought, _there's no time like the present… _

Lisa lifted the lid off of the cedar box and set it beside her on the small dresser. She was surprised at the potency of the wooden smells that assaulted her. It was a pleasant scent; it reminded her of her childhood summers spent in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. She breathed it in deeply before turning her attention to what lay inside. There was a wrinkled envelope, yellow with age, resting atop a bed of cotton.

She placed the envelope gently down on top of the lid and reached for the layer of cotton. It was a rather large box and, while it was not very heavy, she knew it had to hold more than an envelope.

Her first instinct when she lifted the cotton up was to wince. Whatever it was that she had been expecting to find – especially considering how excited her mother had been to give her the gift – it definitely was not what she saw lying atop another bed of aged cotton. Inside of the wooden box, as if it was a facsimile of a coffin, was a doll.

But it was not just a plain doll, the sort that would be acceptable for a newborn baby. It reminded Lisa of the porcelain dolls her mother collected – except, she could tell, this once was sturdier… and, of course, older, and more worn, than any doll in her mother's vast collection.

The toy's skin was once white, the color of fallen snow, but was now the grubby shade of ash-tainted slush. The hair was flaxen, even if it was ratty and hidden beneath a simple black bonnet. It was a female doll, with a painted on smile and wide, staring eyes. She wore an old fashioned-style pale frock, though one sleeve was gone. And that was not the only flaw that Lisa could see, as she brought the doll closer to the light source.

There was a chip on the left side of the doll's face and her right eye had been colored with some sort of black ink. The right hand was missing, the wrist leading into nothingness; she wore only one black, leather shoe.

To put it mildly, the doll was a mess. Her state was worse than any second hand doll that Lisa had ever seen. She could not, for the life of her, figure out where her mother had found such a doll – or why she felt it would make a good gift for Kiera.

Lisa set the odd doll back down onto the cotton nest and laid the open cedar box down, beside the rocking chair. _Maybe_, she thought, _the answers to those questions are in that envelope._

Intrigued as to the importance behind this battered toy, Lisa reached over and picked the envelope up. There was no writing on the outside and the paper was crisp to her touch. Gently, she lifted the flap up and peeked inside. There were a handful of pictures resting inside. She was so very curious so, as carefully as she could, she slid them out.

There were five photographs, she saw as she skimmed through them, all in varying states of appearance. The first of them seemed thicker and coarser than the ones that followed; each one seemed to be just a tad younger than the one preceding it. However, it was quite obvious to see, even in the limited light that Lisa was using, to see that these five photographs were very well cared for.

She looked at the first picture. It was full of people that she had never seen before – there had to be at least thirty of them, men, women, boys and girls. It was faded, with a tear down the left side but, despite that, it was well preserved for its age. She could not date it precisely – there was no handwritten date scrawled on the back – but the image seemed to be very old.

Nothing seemed to jump out at her from that picture so she placed it down and looked at the next. There were only three people in the second photograph: a bearded man, a dark haired women and a child wearing a starched dress. It was an old photograph, in sepia tones, but it was not difficult to see the doll clasped tightly in the little girl's embrace.

Lisa thought that it was interesting – the doll looked a lot better in that picture, she noticed – but did not dwell on it. Placing that picture atop of the first, she looked at the next one.

Like its predecessor, this image showed a family: a man, a woman and three children (two teenage boys and a little girl). The two boys were smiling as they dwarfed their mother; their father standing tall in the background. But it was the little girl that caught Lisa's attention. She had fairer hair, thought it was difficult to tell in the black and white photograph, and great, wide eyes. And, just like the picture before, she held the doll in her hands; but, in this picture, she could see that the doll, though otherwise intact, was missing the sleeve of its dress.

Catching onto the pattern, Lisa looked at the fourth picture (the first of them that was in color). However, the fact that it was in color was not the only difference; this picture was of a single girl, roughly six years old. She had light brown hair hanging limply around her face and a grin that was missing her two front teeth. And, of course, the doll was being resting on her lap; in the colored version of the photograph, she could see that the cheek was chipped and the shoe was missing. However, her eyes were still blue and her hand was intact.

The last image was the only one that seemed familiar to her – mainly because it was an image of herself from when she was three years old. She was sitting in a high chair, chocolate cake smudges all over her face. But, that was not what she was noticing; for the first time ever, she saw the doll that was resting on the table next to her.

At some point, she had played with this doll – that she definitely could not remember. Vaguely, she noticed that, some time between this picture and the one before, the hand had vanished. The eye was still uncolored, though. _Did… I do that? _

After she went through the five images, with her mind still thinking of the last one she had seen, Lisa brought the first one before her eyes again. Squinting, she searched it until she found what she was looking for. There, in the front row, was a little girl with dark hair and a sour expression on her olive-toned face. But, now that she knew what she was looking for, Lisa saw it; the little girl was holding tightly onto the doll.

_Oh my, _she thought to herself, eyes glued to the historical picture, _just how old is this doll?_

She lowered the image and went to pick the doll up again. She found it interesting that the doll – though it _looked _like it could be that old – could have been photographed over the years. But, before she had, she saw that there was something else that she had missed.

It was a piece of paper much smaller than the pictures. It had been folded up and tucked between two of the pictures; as Lisa shuffled through the images, it had fluttered down to her lap. She saw it and, setting the pictures aside, quickly opened it up.

She recognized her mother's handwriting at once. Her mother had slipped a note inside of the envelope with the pictures:

_October 3, 1981_

_My dear Melisa,_

_It is on today, the first anniversary of your birth, that I want to give you something worthy of this event: this doll. You are just a mere babe, and will have no memory of this event, so I thought it would be best if I put down in words just what it means to me._

_While this gift may not seem like much, she is the signal of our family's existence and endurance in this great country. And, though I know that may not matter to you as you grow, by the time you are old enough to pass her on to your own child, I hope you appreciate her for the gem she is._

_This doll is called Italia and she first belonged to your great great grandmother, Anna. She was a gift from her parents when she made the journey from Italy to the New World in the early 1890's. In order to remember the land she was leaving behind, the seven year old Anna called her Italia – she has been named such ever since._

_It has been a tradition in my family ever since for Italia to be passed along to the first born daughter in each family. She has belonged to four previous generations and now, as I prepare to gift her unto you, Melisa Anna Jamison, you will mark the fifth generation._

_And, while Italia has faded from her earlier beauty, she has only grown in charm. For every outward defect that she has sustained, there is a story behind it – a story that was unfolded in the pictures enclosed._

_For example, the missing right hand. I must admit – that was my fault. I had brought Italia with me for to school when there was a fallout drill and she fell when I brought her with me under the desk._

_And, perhaps, you might be wondering about the missing sleeve on her dress? It was carefully cut off by your great grandmother to patch a dress that belonged to your Nana during the Great Depression back in the 30's.  
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So, you see, Italia is, as I'm sure you will learn, more than just a doll. She is the documentation of the past hundred years, preserved in a tiny, smiling doll. And she is all yours now._

_If you love her with even a smidge of the love I have for you than you will love her well._

_Love,_

_Your Mother_

Lisa folded up the note, a ghost of a smile flickering across her lips. She slipped it inside the envelope and rested the envelope on her lap. One last time, she picked up the pictures and looked at them again, one by one. The smilde began to grow and, as she added the pictures back to the old envelope, her teeth were nearly visible.

Leaning over again, she picked up the box and sat that atop her lap as well. She glanced down at the old doll, her eyes taking in each and every flaw she had carelessly noticed just a few moments ago. They were still there but she did not see them as markings against the century old doll anymore.

Now that she looked at the doll, looked at Italia, she could not help but think that each imperfection was a nick of time. And she would not have it any other way.

Lisa ran one of her fingers down Italia's still-smooth cheek and felt at peace. She sighed and, pulling the envelope out from under the box, rested the pictures atop of the doll. She added the cotton bedding back to the box before replacing the lid.

Then, standing up from the rocking chair, Lisa brought the wooden box over to Kiera's cradle and smiled down at the tiny baby. "Kiera, this is your's," she murmured to the sleeping child. Kiera did not stir and Lisa hugged the box to her chest. "I'm going take good care of Italia for you and then, when you're all grown up, you can give her to your baby."

She felt just a tad silly speaking to her daughter like that but felt that it was the perfect thing to say. And then, giving the wooden box in her arms one last squeeze, Lisa set it on the other side of Kiera's crib before leaning in and giving her little girl a sweet kiss on the back of her head.

_I'm going to have to remember to take a picture with Kiera and Italia, _she thought to herself, still smiling, as she resumed her seat in the rocking chair. _Six generations now…_


End file.
